The road to Coos Bay gets twisty and turny and mountainy. I have Idaho to thank for my massively improved hairpin turning and 1-10% grade driving skills. The roads weave in and out and you begin to see the trees get ever so bigger then when you get to Coos Bay you realize you are about to hit the fabled Oregon Coast.

The coast is wonderful because it is long, wide and rocky. It's not like the CT coast nor the Eastern Shore of MD or Delaware. The waves crash ceaselessly and several at a time and make a soothing sound that could put you to sleep or drift you off somewhere for a while.

I stopped and walked along the beach still amazed by how wide it is. The coast is littered with rock formations that you kind of want to walk out to but, are not connected to the actual beach itself.

I'm probably getting ahead of myself to the Crescent city part of the trip but, it should be noted that things in the old noggin are getting a bit mushy.

So I'm going to head off track and make a few non-linear observations.

People don't leave their small towns. Music videos always show the girl or guy heading to the big city and those of us that have traveled don't think this is a big deal. Truth is small town's are like magnets of ambition in reverse. I think I mean that the ambition is sucked out of you replaced by an idea of settling down and raising some kids. These two are not mutually exclusive I realize but, you should have seen what got Taunie excited. She was married for a year and her dog and her snazzy out fit really made the night for her.

The next day's desk clerk was 22 and married some 38 year old guy. She would like to be like the girl in the Poison video Fallen Angel with out all the modeling and porn and parties but, with the big city and the culture and likely the high quality hair products. He is a computer guy who's big quality is his stability and he really wants to have a family

. She tells me of this and about his desire to stay in Coos Bay with a tear in her eye and a unhideable hunger to get out of dodge. And the place is beautiful if not unexciting.

They wouldn't have to go far to find some culture but, leaving a small town, just leaving one hundred miles away seems like a feat of God.

The TV ads out here are remarkable. I tend to veg-out in front of the motel TV. My spongy mind can't take much more and I have the unenviable desire to late morning write rather than night write which doesn't work so well with the overall plan of traversing the country with an eye towards Jackson, MS on December 11Th. Yes, I said the 11Th. Without Laake I've got no structure and I may just never return.

The Ads are targeting youths that make bad decisions. Let's count the most popular bad decisions of the western youth.

. Trusting the High School Boyfriend or "Older Guy" that sex without birth control will not lead to life changing pregnancy4. Gambling (there are Casino's everywhere out here)5. Alcoholism6. 4x4ism. In ability to not drive a 4x4 around with several days of growth and a hundred extra pounds.7. I made that last one up8. I'm trying to think of another one. The GED commercials are hilarious by the way.9. I'm done with this line of thinking.

Howard Stern is a smart guy. He masks this intelligence with his ribaldric and lowbrow comic fare but, he did say something once that sticks with me to this day. Tiger Woods listen up.Everyone is looking for action, that may be girls/guys, drinking, drugs, career, money, travel, family activities and a whole host of things you can't even imagine. Ones success in life will be how the manage their pursuits of action and when people's pursuits get out of hand and they get called on them or they genuinely screw something up for themselves and those they care about that is very tragic. He also talked about identifying what your action is so you know how to manage it because all action can get out of hand and there are so many details of action, so many variations sometimes they are tough to define.

Anyway.

In the service industry fight Oregon's service industry wins over California's by a score of 27-14. Hippies living on tips. Your living on tips, that means you have to actually take care of the customer. California's hippies might be more weedheadish than Oregon's because they just don't care at all and well I've got enough anger right now that I could rip out some hippie throat if they take it to just a little higher level with me and don't ask people.

What else. I'm going to take this moment to relax and go to the next entry.